Here is an interesting piece of history explaining the original purpose of
shoes as quoted out of Dr. Strasser's book "Lifetime of Soundness" :
" By the time when castles were being constructed on hilltops in central
Europe in the 6th Century, horses were required to live in small, enclosed
spaces, standing in their own excretement. The hooves, lacking proper
circulation to form good horn, and additionally weakend by ammonia, were no
longer able to bear up to use on rocky terrian (in contrast to the hooves of
those horses still kept in large open spaces). It was the horses of the princes
and knights, who lived in castles, that were shod to protect the hooves from
excessive wear. The horses of the vassals and common folk, still living more
naturally, did not have (or need) shoes. But, as in human nature, those things
used by the "rich and famous" quickly become desirable to the "common
man".
"Fact is the horse has been used and used hard by man for millennia without
hoof protection. There is lots of historical data to support this."
Kinda makes you wonder if a lot of us blindly accept, and do things
just because it is tradition, and/ or just because that is the way it's always
been done thru out the years.
:)
Robyn